Come into My Arms
by smilesarecookies
Summary: Toby is scared. He doesn't want to be hurt again. But truth be told, can he really help but fall for her? Life is hard for Spencer, she doesn't know if she will ever find that spark of something more - that something that some people search for their whole lives. Spencer wonders if maybe she should stop searching. AU fic (kind of). SPOBY. first fanfic.
1. Preview

He smiled at her. It wasn't a happy smile. This smile was sad. It pulled gently at her heartstrings.

"Love is painful. If you're not in love yet, don't fall in love… it's not worth it. I learned that the hard way," he told her.

She looked at his face morosely and smiled weakly. Their eyes connected as she replied.

"You say 'don't fall in love' like it's a choice. It isn't."

His gaze fluttered down to the tangled mess their hands had made before reconnecting their gaze. Wistfully, he closed his eyes and breathed in the air.

"I know."

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**This is just a small preview of my story. If people, even one, likes it. I will continue. And I promise it will be much much longer.**


	2. Cold Memories

**AN/: I want to thank all the people that reviewed, followed and favorited. Or even simply read it. **

**Also what you read in the last chapter was only a preview. That conversation will feature in this story; but not yet.**

**So I suppose that THIS chapter is offically the 'chapter one'.**

**Anyways... read on...**

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_*Flashback*_

_September 2006_

_A 20 year old Toby reached into his pocket. Saturated hair clung to his forehead. His fingers struggled to uncover the metal keys to open his home. _

_"Come on," he muttered to himself. Life somehow didn't smile down on Toby, or so he felt it didn't. Today he had just discovered that the man who had hired him to do the extension on the side of his house had discovered his scandalous past in a town Toby wished he didn't have any association with; Rosewood._

_The keys turned in the lock. Rain poured down. Mud on the sidewalk held on as the water threatened to wash it away._

_Toby was tired. It was night now. Toby just wanted to sleep. He originally wasn't coming to the apartment that he owned in Seattle. But then, he hadn't expected to lose a job._

_Soft moans could be heard from the bedroom. But Toby was tired. His usually sensitive ears were not as alert as usual. Oblivious to the increasing cries of pleasure, Toby poured some water into the kettle and plodded into the hallway, removing his sodden shoes._

_The rain became heavier._

_The moans became shouts. Toby could hear the noise now, but his mind didn't understand the cause. Rubbing his eyes gently, he ambled towards the bedroom. Swinging the door open was the possibly the first of a chain of events that would lead him to present day. Shock was the first emotion he felt. Then hurt. Then anger. Then all of the possible negative emotions at once._

_A naked woman straddled the man beneath her; their cries getting louder, unaware of the presence in the door frame. _

_"Jess?" called out a broken voice. Toby and Jess had met in high school. Their romance was simple, sweet and true – or so he thought. Toby hadn't had many high school friends. There was him, Jess and Caleb. While he and Jess went off on a romantic whirlwind, Caleb never stuck with one girl. Always being fickle and sleeping with a new girl every week, never sustaining a relationship for longer than a few weeks. Whereas Toby, the ever faithful man, never swayed his attentions elsewhere. The bond of friendship they shared was unbreakable. Till now. _

_The man below her, despite his drunken haze noticed Toby staring at them in disbelief._

_"Caleb?" the broken voice called again._

_Then hell broke loose._

_"Oh my god! What are you doing here?" Jess shouted, covering her tainted body with a crumpled white sheet._

_"I think this is my cue to leave," whispered Caleb. The comment intended for Jess's ears also reached Toby._

_"Yes," she whispered back. Both were now desperately pulling on different articles of clothing._

_"No. Don't leave now!" Toby was angry. "How could you both do this?! Just... why?" Bringing his right hand back, Toby smashed his fist into Caleb's face despite Jess's cries for him to calm down and listen to her. "Get out. Now. I don't ever want to see you face again. And if I do, I'm going to beat the shit out of you!" Toby glared at the figure of Caleb which was now hurrying out of the apartment._

_"Toby. Please. I didn't mean for this to happen. We were both really drunk. I didn't know - I didn't know what I was doing. Please. I love you. Toby." Her pleads did nothing to change the emotions running through Toby's mind._

_"Well you're not drunk now, and you certainly weren't drunk ten minutes ago. So don't give me this crap! You knew what you were doing." There was a pause. "How long?"_

_"I don't know what you mean. I –"_

_"How long?!" Another pause. Jess could see Toby was gone from her life. There was no reasoning with him, at least in this state._

_"Four months. I can't remember how it started." She said resigned._

_Toby couldn't think.__He was consumed by the hurt and angry, the flames obsuring any sense of calm and resolve in his mind._

_"I want you gone by the morning. I never want to see you again. Everything that you own and all of our pictures and shared things, I want gone. If you don't want them, I promise you they'll be in the bin tomorrow." He looked disgustedly at the pile of crumpled sheets on the double bed. "You can have those sheets as well." He turned around and walked out into the hallway and onto the streets, not even glancing back. Starting up his truck, he decided that this was one of those nights he would spend in a motel._

_Rain continued to pour down._

September 2011

Spencer Hastings was apprehensive but also somewhat excited. After completing three years undergraduate study, which should have taken four. And obtaining her degree, and graduating from college in the following three years. Spencer was joining the prestigious law firm _Gray & Watkins_; much to the delight of her parents and the rest of the Hastings family.

She never really wanted to become a lawyer. It was just bestowed upon her. Peter Hastings would present his younger daughter to friends and colleagues with "This is my Spencer. Her academic record is flawless. She will make a brilliant lawyer." or words to that effect. But then Spencer wouldn't know what to become if she didn't become a lawyer. It was just what happened.

In order to familiarize herself with her new surroundings, Spencer decided she would move three weeks before her first day at the law firm which was based in New York. Though, it did ease her mind that some of her friends already resided in the famous city. And that the friends that didn't live there, would be moving there.

Growing up wasn't easy for Spencer or her friends: Aria, Emily and Hanna. They had lived in a town that neighbored Rosewood and Ravenswood; near Philadelphia. And it certainly wasn't a typical high school experience. Their friend Alison was murdered in freshman year by a man called Nigel West in Rosewood. There was a massive scandal. Several people including her sister Melissa's ex-husband Ian Thomas were arrested on suspicion of her murder. Spencer couldn't remember all of them.

Her, Hanna and Hanna's boyfriend of three years Caleb would be moving to New York together. They bought a three bedroom apartment together and planned to each take a room. However in Spencer's opinion there was no point of Hanna and Caleb taking two separate rooms as they would most probably be together constantly occupying one room, leaving the other neglected.

Spencer stared at the empty corner of the room, the corner which was occupied by her bed and then glanced back at the sealed boxes. _I really need to unpack._

She was always a very proactive person; doing assignments the day they were set by the teacher. But today she decided that for once she would change her ways and procrastinate.

Hanna and Caleb were out meeting Aria and her longtime beau, Ezra. Whether that flame would ever diminish, Spencer doubted.

With her coat grasped in one hand, and her other locking the door, she turned around and embraced the streets of New York.

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**So, tell me what you think?**

**I have been reading Fanfiction for over four years now. Someone once told me on fanfiction that ' Reviews are love'. And only once joining Fanfiction properly and starting to write a story I realise the hard work that goes in and how rewarding each review and follow and favorite is.**

**So, please review :)**

**Next chapter we see inside Toby's current life and get a deeper view on Spencer's. And maybe, with fate pulling them together in all sorts of strange ways, their paths will cross.**

**- smilesarecookies**

**3 xxx**


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